Local gun shops are joining in a national event set for Saturday to celebrate gun ownership and protest to the president’s plan to ban assault weapons.

Barack Obama has called for universal background checks and a ban on military-style rifles and ammunition magazines in wake of a deadly school shooting in Connecticut last month.

Local gun shop owners expect small crowds at their stores Saturday for Gun Appreciation Day as proclaimed by a new coalition of gun rights and conservative groups.

The event follows Obama’s proclamations and was scheduled to happen two days before the president’s second inauguration to send a message to Washington, D.C., that Americans don’t want to give up their guns, organizers said.

Customers have been talking about the upcoming event all week, said Eric Kalnicki, manager at Sportsman’s Lodge on New Bern Highway in Jacksonville.

“We’re going to be open for business and we expect customers to show up supporting the right to own guns,” he said.

He said the information about the near-spontaneous event spread quickly among customers via the Internet and word of mouth.

The recent school shooting has also spurred local officials into action, looking at ways to prevent any possible similar tragedy here.

Onslow County Board of Education is asking for nearly $5.9 million to pay for security upgrades at every school in the district.

Improvements — if funded — include better door locks and surveillance equipment. The possibility of placing armed guards in the elementary schools has also been discussed. Deputies and police officers are already stationed in each middle and high school.

“Good guy with a gun puts down bad guy with a gun,” said Daniel “Mouse” Morrison, owner of Mouse’s Cycles and Guns on Marine Boulevard in Jacksonville.

The right to own a gun shouldn’t even be in question, said Morrison who supports Gun Appreciation Day.

“I think everybody ought to own a handgun at their house,” he said. “There are not enough police to protect you in the middle of the night.”

Morrison said he was robbed years ago and it took police four hours to respond. He said he knew response times were better nowadays, but he still felt no one can protect someone in their own home better than an armed homeowner.

“The Castle Doctrine is a good thing,” he said. “It’s good to be able to shoot someone breaking into your house and car.”

Most people — especially lawmakers — are clueless when it comes to guns, Morrison said.

Instead of taking guns, the government should better educate people in their use, he said, adding that he grew up in New York where gun ownership was a reality regardless of the law.

Page 2 of 2 - “Take away guns from good people and only bad people will have them,” he said. “The president says we don’t need guns, but he is surrounded by guys with guns.”

Gun supporters believe the Obama administration has shown it’s more than willing to trample the Constitution to impose its dictates upon the American people, Gun Appreciation Day chairman Larry Ward, president of Political Media, Inc., said in a media release.

“If the American people don’t fight back now, Obama will do to the Second Amendment what he has already done to the First with Obamacare — gut it without a moment’s thought to our basic constitutional rights,” Ward said.

Contact Daily News Senior Reporter Lindell Kay at 910-219-8455 or lindell.kay@jdnews.com. Follow him on Twitter and friend him on Facebook @ 1lindell.